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Did Caravaggio Employ Optical Projections? an Image Analysis of the Parity in the Artist's Paintings

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Did Caravaggio Employ Optical Projections? an Image Analysis of the Parity in the Artist's Paintings Did Caravaggio employ optical projections? An image analysis of the parity in the artist's paintings David G. Stork Ricoh Innovations, 2882 Sand Hill Road Suite 115, Menlo Park CA 94 025 USA ABSTRACT We examine one class of evidence put forth in support of the recent claim that the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio secretly employed optical projectors as a direct drawing aid. Specifically, we test the claims that there is an \abnormal number" of left-handed figures in his works and, more specifically, that \During the Del Monte period he had too many left-handed models." We also test whether there was a reversal in the handedness of specific models in different paintings. Such evidence would be consistent with the claim that Caravaggio switched between using a convex-lens projector to using a concave-mirror projector and would support, but not prove, the claim that Caravaggio used optical projections. We estimate the parity (+ or −) of each of Caravaggio's 76 appropriate oil paintings based on the handedness of figures, the orientation of asymmetric objects, placement of scabbards, depicted text, and so on, and search for statistically significant changes in handedness in figures. We also track the direction of the illumination over time in the artist's œuvre. We discuss some historical evidence as it relates to the question of his possible use of optics. We find the proportion of left-handed figures lower than that in the general population (not higher), and no significant change in estimated handedness even of individual models. Optical proponents have argued that Bacchus (1597) portrays a left-handed figure, but we give visual and cultural evidence showing that this figure is instead right-handed, thereby rebutting this claim that the painting was executed using optical projections. Moreover, scholars recently re-discovered the image of the artist with easel and canvas reflected in the carafe of wine at the front left in the tableau in Bacchus, showing that this painting was almost surely executed using traditional (non-optical) easel methods. We conclude that there is 1) no statistically significant abnormally high number of left-handed figures in Caravaggio's œuvre, including during any limited working period, 2) no statistically significant change in handedness among all figures or even individual figures that might be consistent with a change in optical projector, and 3) the visual and cultural evidence in Bacchus shows the figure was right-handed and that the artist executed this work by traditional (non-optical) easel methods. We conclude that the general parity and handedness evidence does not support the claim that Caravaggio employed optical projections. Keywords: Caravaggio, Hockney projection theory, Baroque art, optical aids, concave mirror, convex lens, parity in art 1. INTRODUCTION Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571{1610), widely known as Caravaggio, was considered by many of his early 17th-century contemporaries to be the most important painter in Rome. His dramatic lighting, chiaroscuro, careful staging, and strong naturalism broke with the prevailing Mannerist style of Parmigianino, El Greco, Pontormo, Tintoretto, and others. His contemporaries criticized his work as being too natural|too real|for the religious subjects of his numerous public and church commissions. They criticized, moreover, his use of prostitutes and rough street people as models for sacred and religious figures such as Christ, Mary and Saints. Reflecting upon Caravaggio's influence, Nicholas Poussin proclaimed, \He came to destroy painting," and Andr´e Berne-Joffroy wrote \what begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite simply, modern painting." Neither preparatory drawings nor unambiguous documentary records from fellow painters, patrons, portrait subjects or critics who observed him at work survive, and this lack has led to much speculation about Caravaggio's studio praxis. Only the short record from Baglione's 1603 libel suit mentions such direct observation; these include nothing about projection optics, our concern in this study. Well after Caravaggio's death, Mancini, Send correspondence to [email protected]. 1 Bellori and others discussed his possible techniques, though it is unclear how they could have known much of what they discussed. Christiansen and Puglisi described Caravaggio's plausible working methods consistent with the stylistic and physical evidence, such as incision lines in the grounds in several paintings.1, 2 A revisionist theory has been proposed as well|one that claims Caravaggio secretly built optical projectors, illuminated his subjects by sunlight and projected their real images onto the canvas, traced these images and then filled in paint.3, 4 This theory has been has been extended to claim that Caravaggio created a light-sensitive chemical, applied it to his ground so that it would fluoresce for a while|glow|in response to illumination by the projected image. In this way the glowing chemicals would temporarily record or “fix” such a projected image, which Caravaggio could see and trace in his darkened studio.4{6 If this claim could be confirmed, it would mean that artist Caravaggio employed a primitive automatic method for fixing a real image more than two centuries before the invention of photography. One class of evidence put forth in support of the optical projection claim centers on the left-right parity of the images in his paintings, that is, whether a right-handed figure in the studio appears right-handed or instead left-handed in the final painting. A simple concave-mirror projector preserves this parity (i.e., a right-handed figure appears right-handed), while a simple convex lens projector inverts the parity (cf., Sect. 4).7 Roberta Lapucci claims: \There is lots of proof [sic], notably the fact that Caravaggio never made preliminary sketches," and that there is an \abnormal number" of Caravaggio's subjects are left-handed. \That could be explained by the fact that the image projected on the canvas was backwards." [8, quoted in] She is explicit about the time of such a purported abnormal excess in left-handed figures: \During the Del Monte period [1600{1610] he had too many left-handed models." [5, p. 41] It was, in fact, the parity-preserving property of concave mirrors, among other reasons, that led Hockney and Falco to propose some artists as early as 1430, such as Jan van Eyck and the Master of the Fl´emalle,employed concave mirrors (rather than the more familiar convex lens) directly as a drawing aid.9 Lapucci claims, further, to have identified a change in the parity of some individual figures Caravaggio's œuvre (which she calls \symmetry") and ascribes this purported change to the artist switching from a lens-based to a mirror-based projector.4 These are the claims we test here. In Sect. 2 we state the general hypothesis that Caravaggio employed optical projections directly while execut- ing some of his paintings, and in Sect. 3 review some of the image and contextual evidence presented in earlier research on this question. We then state more carefully the specific parity claim we test here. In Sect. 4 we review the basic optics of lens, mirror, and catadioptric (lens plus mirror) projectors with special consideration of the parity of the real images they produce. We mention in passing some of the history of optics of the late 16th and early 17th century around Rome, including what Caravaggio might plausibly have known about optics. In Sec. 5 we describe the criteria and collection of the raw data, which is listed in Table 1 in the Appendix. We also search for a change in parity in Caravaggio's works and individual figures. In Sect. 6 we summarize our conclusions. 2. THE TRACING THEORY AND CARAVAGGIO Some scholars have been intrigued by the possibility that several artists may have traced optically projected images during the execution of their works. Such a procedure has been securely established for several artists, starting with Canaletto (1697{1768), extending through Thomas Eakins (1844{1916), and of course to numerous modern photorealists. One of the most thoroughly debated cases is that for the Dutch Golden Age master Johannes Vermeer.10 While many scientists11 and art historians12 may grant that this artist might have seen images projected by a camera obscura, most experts remain unconvinced that this artist directly traced images during the execution of any of his works. David Hockney has proposed that artists as early as Jan van Eyck (1385?{1441) and the Master of the Fl´emalle,widely identified as Robert Campin (1380?{1444), traced projected images in the early Renaissance, nearly two centuries earlier than scholars have secure evidence any artist employed such a method. Hockney and his colleague Charles Falco argue that this procedure was perhaps the most important impetus for the rise in realism or \opticality" of the ars nova or \new art" of that time.3, 9 Over two dozen independent scientists, historians of optics, historians of art and prize-winning realist painters| including those in a four-day workshop devoted to testing Hockney's theory|have examined the evidence, discovered new physical evidence, and have concluded by rebutting or rejecting Hockney's tracing claim (or at best finding the claims unproven), at least for the early Renaissance. [13{19, and references therein] 2 The claim that Caravaggio used optics cannot be as easily dismissed. First, Caravaggio lived well after the Renaissance, in the Italian Baroque|an era providing early documentary evidence of appropriate images projected by mirrors or lenses. His first patron, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, was interested in science; Giambattista della Porta experimented with optical projections, used them in his magic shows, and wrote about them over a decade before Caravaggio's birth (cf., Sect. 4). It is highly likely, therefore, that Caravaggio had at the very least seen such projected images.
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